Finds in the week: Artist Cai Guo-Qiang

In the April 2013 edition of Smithsonian Magazine, Ron Rosenbaum wrote about his interview with the artist Cai Guo-Qiang in his article entitled "Burning Man".

Born in China, Cai Guo-Qiang now lives in the US and displays his art around the world.  His medium: explosives.  Some of his art that may be familiar to most people is the display of explosions he created for the opening of the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

The interview with Cai Guo-Qiang is fascinating as Rosenbaum discovers the deeper meaning for the artists  choice in medium and his art by learning about his childhood, his father's life, and his own hope for eyes, beyond just the Earth, to view his art.  Rosenbaum describes Cia Quo-Qiang's art as: "Violence transformed into ethereal beauty."

Visit Cai Guo-Qiang's website for photos of his fascinating projects and read the article "Burning Man" by clicking on the links.

Foto Friday: To be a kid again...

Words in the week: April Dreams #4

Sometimes it becomes difficult to keep following your dreams, goals, and aspirations in life... With this quote in mind, hopefully you will be inspired to keep going.

"It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are alive.  There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger for them."   ~George Eliot

Click here for more Words in the week: April Dreams, April Dreams #2, April Dreams #3.

Small Stone #20

I hear the song of the Sandhill Cranes in the distance
Look to the sky to see their flight, their song so distinct
A present, but all I get is to wonder
When will I see them?
Days later, along a waterway
I see them take to the sky
Song and sight synchronize

Recent Reads: Ted Kooser's poems, The Blizzard Voices

In the midst of the recent spring storms that have sent the landscape back to winter, I read TedKooser’s book of poems entitled The Blizzard Voices.

The poems portray what happened to the people who lived on the Great Plains when the blizzard of January 12, 1888 blew full force across the land.  Although the harrowing blizzard took place over one-hundred and twenty years ago, reading about their experiences in relation to the devastating storm made my own love/hate relationship with Wyoming springs seem quite trivial.  One man froze in between his horses, children were trapped in rural school houses with little food or heat bringing death to some, other people risked their own lives by going out in the storm to find food and blankets to keep others alive, and many froze to death within feet of their own homes.

Kooser reveals in his introduction that the voices of the poem are his, gathered over many years from conversations with family members, and listening to people when he was a boy as they remembered how they survived the 1888 blizzard.

Authentic and powerful in their telling, the poems express stories of individual lives and target the essence of human nature amongst a natural disaster: survival.  As I listen to the wind and watch the snow blow, I can almost hear the survivor’s voices- somewhat sad and reminiscent- but heard and remembered as their memory, once again, is stirred into the present.